Come out of your shell: Gartic in The Language Classrooms

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. 
I haven't been posting much because I had a lot of work to do with school and my job. 
There is some news! I have started teaching voluntarily in Okul Destek Derneği this April. I enjoyed the distance education experience with very talented and eager 13-year-olds from all over Turkey. If you want to support students in middle school in their education you can click here to donate or volunteer!
In today's class, my students have shown me an online game called Gartic. I jumped right in to here to tell you about it. There is Gartic Phone and gartic.io. So, let me explain each in detail.

Gartic.io 
This game allows students to have drawn the word in the chosen category. While one is drawing the others are typing their guess in the "answers" part. I think it is easier to play on a smartphone since drawing with fingers is easier.
On this website (there is also an app!), you can play in Easy mode. We haven't signed in n and it worked perfectly fine. Bew sure to change the language to English -or to another language you are teaching- so that students can get the instructions in that language. Click on Rooms and open a new room for your students. 

Later you can open a new room and then follow the steps. Gartic allows this game for 50 players which I believe is more than enough. Also, don't forget to set up a point limit. I recommend 100-120 points for 6-8 students. Because each time they draw and guess the answer they get points. Do not make the rooms visible to prevent players outside the classroom. Choose a theme or create your own. Later open the room, send the link from chat, and start enjoying your game.

As the creator, you'll have a chance to draw the first word. You can give hints or explain the word while you are drawing. DO NOT screen share because students can see the word or your answers :) 

It looks something like this while you are playing. Here, a student was drawing an ice-cream cone. 

I think this game is very useful to practice vocabulary. It is limited to drawing and guessing however it is still beneficial to learn new words. Also, new games always bring a change to classroom routines. 

Gartic Phone
After Gartic.io, I wanted to show Gartic Phone. It gets funnier and time-to-time challenging. In this version of the game, you play the telephone game with students. 

Do not forget to choose the language you are teaching, type in your nickname start and make the necessary arrangements.

You can play with 30 players at one time. I recommend choosing "normal" for the beginning. We have also tried "secret" which was a bit challenging. Then, invite students via link.

Everyone would start a story by writing a sentence. I recommend asking for longer, full sentences with at least 5 words so that the language function can be included too :) 

Later, these sentences will the distributed to each player and everyone will draw a picture of the sentence. Then pictures will be distributed to have new sentences and so on. In the end, everyone's story will be finished. 

I believe these features of Gartic can help to work on vocabulary and storytelling. Beginner and pre-intermediate young learners would love these games. Of course, adults can enjoy it too :) 

Like all the digital tools/games, Gartic is not perfect. You might not control what students are drawing or writing online. To create and maintain a safer classroom area for maximum language practice and use, try this game first and check whether it works or not. 

You might think it takes a long time, but when everyone gets what's going on it will be a great 30-minute game that you play every other week or once a month. 

I believe it is great to "come out of your shell" and try new ways to for traditional games. "Telephone/Chinese whispers" or "draw and guess" game shouldn't be boring anymore!

I hope you can find a use for Gartic in your own class. Don't forget to comment if you have used or thinking about using it!

Elif